PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE: To determine whether having friends who share one's disability experiences is associated with higher well-being, and whether these friendships buffer well-being from disability-related stressors. Research Method/Design: In 2 cross-sectional studies, adults with long-term physical disabilities identified close friends who shared their diagnosis. We assessed well-being as a function of the number of friends that participants identified in each group. Study 1 included 71 adults with legal blindness living in the United States, while Study 2 included 1,453 adults in the United States with either muscular dystrophy (MD), multiple sclerosis (MS), post-polio syndrome (PPS), or spinal cord injury (SCI).

RESULTS: In Study 1, having more friends sharing a blindness diagnosis was associated with higher life satisfaction, even controlling for the number of friends who were not blind. In Study 2, Participants with more friends sharing their diagnosis reported higher quality of life and satisfaction with social role participation. Participants with more friends sharing their diagnosis also showed and attenuated associations between the severity of their functional impairment and their quality of life and social role satisfaction, suggesting that their friendships buffered the impact of their functional impairment on well-being. Participants reporting more friends with any physical disability showed similar benefits.

CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Friends with disabilities can offer uniquely important informational and emotional support resources that buffer the impact of a functional impairment on well-being. Psychosocial interventions should help people with long-term disabilities build their peer support networks. (PsycINFO Database Record

Friends play important roles in our lives. They can make us laugh, lift our spirits, and give us information or advice. People with physical disabilities may feel a special connection with friends who have the same disability, such as people they meet in support groups. One person with MS told us, “I think it’s a matter of feeling less self-conscious around [other people with MS] because they don’t see you the way other people see you.” Another person, who is blind, said about her blind friends: “We all immediately share a common bond, and have an understanding and camaraderie with each other right away.” In this study, we wanted to find out if people who had more friends sharing their disability were happier with their lives.

What did the researchers do?

We conducted two survey studies. First, we sent a survey to about 70 adults who were legally blind. On the survey, we asked the respondents to count all of their friends who were also blind, and all of their friends who were not. Then we asked them to rate how satisfied they were with their lives overall.

Then, we sent a similar survey to about 1,500 people with either muscular dystrophy (MD), multiple sclerosis (MS), post-polio syndrome (PPS), or spinal cord injury (SCI). We asked these respondents to count how many of their friends had their physical condition and how many friends had any physical disability. As in the first survey, we also asked them about their overall quality of life. Finally, we asked these respondents how severe their physical limitations were as a result of their disability condition.

What did the researchers find?

In both surveys, we found that respondents who listed more friends with disabilities said they were happier with their lives overall than respondents with less friends having disabilities. In the first survey, this connection held up no matter how many friends without disabilities the respondent had. In the second survey, we also found that almost half of the respondents listed no friends with disabilities. For these respondents, there was a strong link between having more severe physical limitations and lower overall quality of life. However, for the respondents with at least one friend having a disability, that link was weaker, meaning that their physical limitations had less impact on their quality of life. Interestingly, the results applied to having friends with any physical disability, even if the friends had different disability conditions.

How can you use this research?

If you have a physical disability, sharing experiences with others in a similar situation can bolster your well-being. Sometimes, it can be hard to find friends with similar disabilities. The following organizations may have support groups in your area:

The contents of our website were developed under a grant from National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90RT5023-01-00). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this website do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government (Edgar, 75.620 (b)).